


The fateful twinkie

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse memories, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Good Sibling Klaus Hargreeves, Good Sibling Vanya Hargreeves, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Near Death, Not Beta Read, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Some apocalypse angst but present niceness, Starvation, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Vanya is curious about something that Five said, regarding twinkies really not having an endless shelf life.Five tells the story of his experience with an apocalypse twinkie on a movie night of the two of them with KlausAngst but niceness at the end
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 2
Kudos: 176





	The fateful twinkie

"Do you know what death tastes like?" Five was solemn.

Klaus pouted. Vanya had convinced him to invite Five to their movie night and now he was being reminded of what death tasted like. No bueno.

"I thought this was a story about a twinkie." 

"It is. So, do you, do you now what death tastes like? Klaus, I'm sure you do."

"Tastes like sulphur..."

"...and bile.."

"... and ash, and blood."

Vanya made a face. Why were her brothers like this, why did they know this.

"Well, when I was... hard to say, but probably in my early twenties? There was an electrical storm, and then a series of sand avalanches, which made it very hard to stay out of the shelter I found. A basement, they were what survived the most. It was mouldy and, you know, too cold and too hot, but it was four walls that protected you against lightning and getting sand in your lungs, which is not pleasant."

"How would you know that?" Vanya was not liking this story. She thought it would be a nice cute anecdote about how he had tasted horrors in a twinkie, not... Something from a gothic horror book. "You got sand in your lungs?"

"Of course I did. And in my stomach and everywhere. Spent a good few months coughing up sand. But that's not the point."

"We were in the too cold/too hot basement." Klaus said. He needed to know this story, it felt promising.

"Yeah, we were. So I would occasionally get out to see if the situation had calmed down, but you know, apocalyptic nature doesn't like being rushed. So I was stuck there, and well... my food reserves got low and disappeared, no matter how much I rationed it. And water was gone too, so I knew I had to leave or I would die there."

"How many times did you almost die in the apocalypse, man?"

"Well, depending on the moment. First few years was about once a month, then it slowed to... I don't know, a handful of times a year? At first I would get all kind of poisoning from the air and water, but then my body got used to it, I guess. But I still got sick, sometimes I cut myself with something rusty... I do think I got you beat in times my heart stopped, Klaus. And I think it's something to do with my power that it managed to restart, which is funny since my power was mostly absent, probably due to all the starving and pain, and never ending exhaustion. Anyways..."

"You were starving in the basement." Vanya reminded.

"I was! I really was. You know that moment when you're so starved that you can never get warm again, and every notion of cold cuts your skin? When you're so weak that you can barely keep your eyes open, much less move? When even thoughts like "I am hungry" are too much to concentrate on? Well, I was there. And I had to get out in the middle of a death sandstorm and try to find someplace that may have food and drinkable water."

"Our poor Five, you make my mine problems seem small. You must have felt so alone and ill and desperate." Klaus said, and actually meant it.

"I was desperate. And I fell on the sand quite a few times, and every time it was harder to get up. But what choice did I have? It was getting up or dying, so I had to try, didn't I? Till my last breath."

"You're so strong, Fiver, my man. I don't think I'd have made it a single year there."

"Let him talk, Klaus!" Vanya said. The story was at a critical point!

"At some point, the miracle happened, and I stumbled upon another basement. After the trip, as you can imagine, I was spent. I passed out, hit my head. I don't know when I woke up, but I knew, I somehow knew that I really didn't have long. So I looked around... There were no cans, nothing that was edible. The storm had killed a lot of the bugs too, even the ones in basement, if they had nothing to eat... colonies disappeared. But there was one thing."

"The twinkie."

"It looked a bit mouldy and old, but it was food, dammit! I so badly needed food, I wasn't even thinking. And well, when I opened it, had a bite...."

"It tasted like death." Klaus finished.

"But I forced myself to eat it, because yeah, some of it might hurt me, but surely there was something salvageable there too? Some sugar molecules to give me some strength?" 

Vanya was on the edge of her butt, imagining poor emaciated Five just struggling to live.

"Did it hurt you? Apart from tasting like that?"

"Yeah, yeah it did. Before I knew it, I was doubled up in the floor, puking up blood and bile. The pain, the pain in my stomach, Vanya... I still remember it. It was so intense, so big, like a flash, red and raw and wrong, that reached all of my nerve endings, spreading from stomach, ripping it to shreds...."

"How do you survive something like that?" Klaus asked.

"Believe me, I wanted to give up, let myself die once and for all. At least then there would be no more pain, and I would be fighting, so hard, just to see the next day. But then a heard a voice."

What? How? Vanya needed to know.

"A voice? There was someone else? Or were you hallucinating?"

"A bit of both, I guess? The voice told me not to give up, the voice told me to remember who and what I was fighting for. The voice told me that I wasn't alone, and got me the strength to make it through the night."

It was Klaus who made the connection

"Oh my god, your mannequin wife!"

"No wonder my brain provided the name Dolores, I was in so much pain, I couldn't think up anything else. The thing is that I lived through the night after that fateful twinkie, and managed to find some cockroaches the next day. And managed to find a way to keep my sanity, just a little while longer. All's well that ends well, right?"

There was a stunned silence. Vanya... well, she'd been able to picture the story in her head quite clearly, and she was feeling heartbroken, hell, devastated, that this horrifying story was just a mere anecdote in Five's several decades of horror. He'd gone through so much pain, so much solitude, so many horrors...

"Five, I'm.... I can't even imagine...."

"And I'm glad you can't, Vanya, It's better that you don't."

Klaus refused to let sadness coat his movie night.

"Well, we're not going to let you almost die so easily now!"

"Klaus, I got shot like a dozen times since I came back."

"But that's then, and now's now. Now is the moment when we are going to watch a happy movie and have some snacks that don't remind you of agonising pain that nearly took your life."

"That may not be so easy." Five said, soft, with a little sigh. There was a reason why he had little more than coffee.

"What about pop corn?"

"We can have pop corn."

"Then I shall make seven bags of it!" Klaus announced, and left.

"Five," Vanya said, with a soft smile and warm eyes.

"Yeah?"

"I'm very glad you never gave up. That you didn't just save me, and the others... but that you saved yourself too. You deserve a life better than that."

Five was truly touched, suddenly happy that he’d let himself be talked into this night.

"Thank you, Vanya."

"You may not have Dolores anymore, but you have us, now, and hopefully more movie nights and good memories. More pop corn and less twinkies."

"Looking forward to a life like that."

"FOOD IS COMING!" Klaus' voice said from the kitchen, the smell of pop corn filling the air.

He was also glad he had made it.

And that no one would have to go through what he had.

No twinkies for them, not anymore, just pop corn, and a terrible German movie Klaus picked, with smiley eyes and more life than ever:

"What about Snickers though? Is that good? Cos I really have a craving."

Five smiled back.

"Snickers are good."

They were good. Memories would always haunt him, but...

For now, they were good.

Snickers, movie nights and understanding caring Hargreeves were very good.

**Author's Note:**

> Dolores means "pains" in Spanish in case you didn't know (always found it quite an interesting detail, even if it's a fairly common name)
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Would love to hear from you!
> 
> You know you want to comment ;)


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